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<title>SketchUcam: HOWTO change the default Gcode plotter</title>
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<div class="intro-name">Phlatboyz PhlatScripT
	<div><b>SketchUcam Version 1.2</b><br>Jul 2014</div>
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<h2>HOWTO change the default Gcode plotter</h2>
<p>SketchUcam 1.1 is provided with the Gplot program to visualize the Gcode that
you have output from your drawing.</p>
<p>
You can change the program to any Gcode plotter that takes a filename as command line parameter, such as
NCPlot.   NCPlot will be used as an example here, replace references to NCPlot with your Gcode plotter.
</p>
Follow these steps:
<img src="images/howto01.png" align=right alt='screen image'>
<ol>
	<li>Close Sketchup
	<li>Find your NCPlot icon or menu entry, and <b>right click</b> it
	<li>Select 'Properties'
	<li>Under 'Target', select all the text as in image at right
	<li>Press CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard
	<li>Open the file 'gplot.rb' in the folder <b>C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins</b> 
		or <b>C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins</b> if you have 64bit Windows.<br>
      For Sketchup 2014 the path will be something like<br>
      <u>C:\Users\<i>username</i>\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2014\SketchUp\Plugins</u><br>
      
      
		You need to open it in Notepad or a similar plain text editor.  NOT MSWord!
		(to open Notepad, Start|All Programs|Accessories|Notepad)<br clear=all><br>
	<li><img src="images/howto02.png" align=right>
		The file open in Notepad should appear as at right.<br clear=all>
	<li>In front of the line 
		<pre>@exe = Sketchup.find_support_file("GPlot.exe", "/Plugins")</pre>
		place a '#' like this
		<pre><b>#</b>@exe = Sketchup.find_support_file("GPlot.exe", "/Plugins")</pre>
	<li>add a line below that one
	<li> in the blank line type<br>
		<pre>@exe = ""</pre>
	<li>now, between the "", paste the path to NCPLot.exe we copied to the clipboard earlier<br>
		<pre>@exe = "D:\myapps\NCPlotv1.2\NCPlot.exe"</pre>
	<li><b>for each \	character in the path, add another one next to it like this</b><br>
		<pre>@exe = "D:\\myapps\\NCPlotv1.2\\NCPlot.exe"</pre>	
	<li><img src="images/howto03.png" align=right>
		Save the file, which should look as in the image at right
	</ol>
<h3>Now let us test Sketchup	</h3>
<ol>	
	<li>Open Sketchup, 
	<li>open a drawing for which you have created Gcode, 
	<li>select Plugins|Plot Gcode
	<li>NCPlot should open with the existing Gcode file
</ol>	
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